Random thoughts on PSP: nothing can save it. It's been dead since before Go was released. Marketing your portable platform on the promise of console-like gameplay backed by similar horsepower and broad media playback is almost like throwing up a flag saying 'pirate me'. Sure, you'll attract the honest enthusiast consumers, but many if not most of them will also be the same sort who are savvy enough to know where to get news about and how to download free shit for that platform and being as picky as they are about what they purchase, you'll probably run into the problem that they start to occasionally d/l something and then many will end up doing so regularly and casually as time wears on. It's the same problem for Linux...you can't sell them much because they're so geeky and kept abreast of all new developments that they also know where and when to get that shit for free. A lot of them are in that group of over-entitled 21st century internet user to geek crowd who never knew a world without the internet and free shit at your fingertips. Why would they ever pay for shit since they've been downloading it since they were in elementary school? Your friends all have X, why don't you? Then, it's just a matter of opportunity and you'll be sucked into the fold doing it just as habitually as they do. Oh, you might buy when you had extra money and a job, but now you're in college or have other commitments that need a lot more cash than they once did...just a hop, skip, and a jump away from a download.
A portable machine has to have more brand street cred, have stronger protections that come intertwined with essential software, and be a strong sign of social status among peers...like Apple's overpriced stuff. And it has to start strong on the protection and build it's brand worth and profile as a cool device to own...necessary to easy social interface with your portable device-using brethren.
PSP could only have one shot and that was to appeal to the same crowd who's less informed about how to steal shit easily from off of the 'net and who are the prime buyers during Black Friday and holiday seasons...picking up these devices for their children and making regular purchases of popular franchises, like Pokemon and cartoon, family film, and teen show licenses. Ninty's got that shit on lockdown and PSP2 or whatever, I'm sure was planned or is planned to be the big 3D portable until Ninty took that shit first. Now, all they do is try to play up some relatively worthless (outside of the enthusiast gamer) interoperability/connectivity between PS3 and PSP. Ninty doesn't even bother trying that any more with DS and Wii since it failed to really pan out with GBA and GC.
Culturally, it seems that Japan, with its dense city lifestyle with longer public transportation commutes and smaller abodes is far more receptive to those few titles that excite the regular consumer of the PSP. But what happens when Ninty takes on Monster Hunter with the 3DS and takes one of the last big software performers for the platform? Lights out, man. Sony missed the boat unless they've got ideas of their own instead of simply following the breadcrumb trail left by others.
